Superintendent Silva, look for blessing over short-term political gains

On Thursday Paul had a letter in his backpack from the Superintendent asking parents to contact legislators about public financing for Saint Paul schools. The whole letter can be found here.

I had one of those moments of just shaking my head as I read these sentences:

We are required by law to provide special education services. Freezing special education funding without reducing services amounts to an additional cut of $3 million.

This money will have to be made up from our general fund. The likely result of this cut will be increasing class sizes and the elimination of all day kindergarten.

Ok, where do we begin with what’s wrong with this? I’ll just stick with two.

First, this is a false dilemma. The Saint Paul Public School budget for the 2010-11 academic year is $623 million, and they began the year with a $59 million fund balance. They have numerous options for how money can be moved around, spent or not spent. To assert that because their hands are tied in one area means they have only one option in another is simply not true.

Second, the superintendent is pitting the needs of students with disabilities against typically-developing students. There was a reason why she chose those two groups of children. Read those above sentences from the superintendent again. It could also read this way: if we could, we would take money away from children with disabilities and make sure we have programs for students who really deserve it.

Frankly, I don’t know if St. Paul Public Schools needs more money or not, if they spend too much money on special education or not, or need all day kindergarten or not. So I’m not going to comment on the merits of what she was asking parents to do.

But these subtle statements about being handcuffed by laws governing special education just feed the cultural disdain for people with disabilities. ‘They’ are expensive, less worthy than others, and interfering with our plans.

I hope for better from public officials, especially those working in institutions dedicated to serving children.

But, it is a reminder there is lasting hope only in the One who has regard for those who are considered lesser in this present age. And he speaks a blessing on those who have regard for the weak:

Blessed is the one who considers the poor (or weak)! Psalm 41:1a

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One Response

I have been so blessed by your blogs since I found them. Being a Christian parent of a child with significant learning disabilities and depression puts me in a unique situation in my church. The leadership of our church believes that my son’s issues are largely the result of someone’s sin (and ignore that whole passage about the blind man that disproves that idea).

However, I need to respond to this from the perspective of my role as an educator, rather than a parent of a disabled child. My son is expensive to educate. Period. He costs less than at least two of my students, as well. I have two students assigned to my classroom that each need an individual para, and one of those has a full time special ed teacher assigned to him, as well. That child alone costs nearly $75,000. My other student would be at least $30,000. My son is close to $15,000 when you include the percentage of salary that each of his paras/teachers earn. One child in a level 4 setting can cost $80,000. The state only sends $10,000 per child (when you combine general ed and special ed funding in our district, not St. Paul). The other $90,000 for those three students I know personally had to come from somewhere.

The district has three main funding streams, not including PTO fundraising. The general fund, the capital fund, and the special ed funding. Capital funds may ONLY be used on buildings and technology improvements, by law. Special ed funds may only be used on special education by law, but it doesn’t begin to cover the costs of special education. The only other place to take the additional funds from IS the general fund. It is not a false dichotomy. The laws regarding what a district must do for our kids are clear, yet underfunded.

Superintendent Silva is asking for what every educator in America is asking for. No more unfunded or underfunded mandates. The Federal government promised to fund IDEA up to 40% when they passed the law, and they never made it past 18%. That money has to come from somewhere, and it does result in cuts to services for everyone else.

There is no easy answer. I do not begrudge my students their services, as they are delightful young people and I enjoy every moment I get to impact their lives.

I am extremely grateful to the teachers that have impacted my son, and taken him from an angry and scared little boy and helped turn him into a passionate, articulate, excellent student.

Those people cost money. Rightfully so. They are excellent educators. In our district, more than 90% of our bugget is salary and benefits. There just isn’t anything else to cut.